Top tips for engaging company webinars.

With companies moving increasingly towards remote work, webinars can be a highly effective way to engage your people.

Webinars allow leaders to deliver key business updates, recognise employees and drive positive
behaviours, ensuring that remote and global teams feel connected, valued and appreciated. Office Angels have always been advocates of hosting company webinars, with our own webinar engagement rate
of 79% (227 out of 287 staff logged in to watch our March webinar whilst working remotely).

With Office Angels
being spread over 60 branches across the UK, our monthly webinars are used to bring everyone together under
one “virtual roof”- to share business updates and wider company successes, and to make sure that everyone
feels included within the OA ‘family’. This approach has been so successful that we achieved 97% in
camaraderie in our latest Great Place To Work Survey as surveyed by our own people, and are now 4th in the UK's
Best Workplaces™ 2020, Large Category.

We share our top tips for hosting engaging company webinars in your business, from effective planning to a
positive and personal delivery.

Organising the webinar

When sharing the webinar invite, include a brief description of the webinar, and its location if it is being
presented from a local branch. It’s a good idea to provide technical details of how to log into the webinar,
along with a few troubleshooting tips.

Try to choose the date and time according to when is the least busiest time for the business – you might
want to avoid scheduling the webinar for first thing on a Monday morning, for instance, as staff may be
itching to catch up on emails and get started on their to-do lists.

Try to choose the date and time according to when is the least busiest time for the business – you might
want to avoid scheduling the webinar for first thing on a Monday morning, for instance, as staff may be
itching to catch up on emails and get started on their to-do lists.

As a guide, stick to around 30-45 minutes, and definitely no longer than an hour or you’ll start to lose
people’s attention, no matter how engaging the content is. Split the content into different sections,
ideally around 5-10 minutes each, again to keep people focussed and to maintain a good flow
throughout the session.

A week before the webinar, send out a company-wide ‘teaser’ email, highlighting what will be covered.
This creates a buzz around the webinar and reminds people that it is taking place.

Always send a follow up email after the webinar, with a link to the recording, slides and any other
materials that have been covered, as well as highlighting the date of the next webinar.

Hosting the webinar

Choose an engaging presentation style that feels comfortable for you. It’s easy to get caught up in the
facts and figures you need to deliver, but to ensure that your message is heard and understood, pay
attention to the way in which you are delivering the content. A relaxed, informal style tends to work well,
so it feels more like a one-to-one conversation – try to steer clear of having lots of detailed notes,
because it can come across as if you are reading from a script and listeners may switch off.

Think carefully about the right structure for your content. You may want to start with business updates,
for example, before moving onto highlighting the successes of teams and individuals. Where possible,
invite experts from across the wider business to contribute their knowledge and insights – having ‘guest
speakers’ is a great way to make each webinar different from the last, as well as upskilling your teams on
important topics.

Ahead of the webinar, ask managers to let you know the great things their team have been doing. People
tune in for the chance to see their name in lights, and company webinars are a fantastic opportunity to
recognise your people and share their achievements with the wider business. At Office Angels we tend to
use photos and videos to highlight employees and the work they have been involved in, rather than textheavy slides – this brings the content to life and helps to keep people’s attention.

If people are social distancing in an office or joining from home, which may be happening for some time
to come, why not suggest they listen in with some tasty treats or drinks on hand to make it more social?

To keep up to date with industry news and our other areas of expertise, follow us on
Facebook and
LinkedIn.